26/12/2023 - The Basque filmmakers are calling on the talents of the Catalan actor for this story based on real events, about a person who faked being a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp

Marco [+see also:
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interview: Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño
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interview: Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño an…
film profile] (winner of the Best Director and Best Screenplay Awards at San Sebastián, as well as Make-up & Hair at the European Film Awards), Giant [+see also:
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interview: Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño
film profile] (Special Jury Prize at San Sebastián) and Flowers [+see also:
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film profile]. It is based on the real-life case of Enric Marco, who, for years, made the whole world believe that he had survived a Nazi concentration camp. Eduard Fernández (the winner of three Goya Awards, seen recently in the series 30 Coins [+see also:
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film profile] and Can’t Say Goodbye [+see also:
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interview: Lino Escalera
film profile]), who plays Laura, his second wife. The pair of performers are working together again after previously having done so in Todas las mujeres [+see also:
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film profile], While at War [+see also:
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interview: Alejandro Amenábar
film profile] and the La broma episode of the series Historias para no dormir [+see also:
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series profile], among other productions. The shoot for the movie took place on location in the Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid and Germany.

With a screenplay penned by both directors, alongside Jorge Gil (In the Company of Women [+see also:
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series profile] (which starts airing on 19 January on Disney+), Marco (which was originally planned as a documentary film) is a drama-thriller that tells the story of a deportee who never existed. It spins the tale of the life of a man who, for years, was able to keep telling a lie in the public eye, and even to his own family. It was a lie that’s difficult to make up: that he had been a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.

Indeed, Enric Marco Batlle (1921-2020) was a Spanish trade unionist who served as secretary-general of the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and as the president of the Amical de Mauthausen association in Spain. During his time at the head of this association, he gave a large number of talks, chiefly in educational institutions, about his alleged life as a survivor of the Nazis, replete with anecdotes and tiny details; however, in 2005, he courted international infamy after a report by historian and researcher Benito Bermejo (who specialises in studying Spaniards who were deported to concentration camps) discovered that he had falsified information in his biography so as to appear as a survivor of the Nazi extermination camp in Flossenbürg. Despite this, he never apologised for the hoax.

Marco is being produced by Irusoin, Moriarti, La verdad inventada AIE, Atresmedia Cine and Bteam Prods, and it boasts the involvement of the ICAA, the Basque Government, Atresmedia, Movistar Plus+ and EITB. Bteam Pictures will distribute the movie in Spain, while its international sales will be overseen by Film Factory Entertainment.

(Translated from Spanish)